The Light in the Woods

2/28/10 Insights from Study              I have a prayer that God loves. I made it up under the inspiration of God Himself and thousands of words of God-lovers who have loved Him before me. If I should find myself suddenly without anything else to call my own, my prayer will still bring me where I need to go. If my enemies chase me to the far ends of the Earth, I can carry my prayer with me without burden. If I have no food or water, I can still present my prayer to God; I will find either sustenance for my body, for my spirit, or for both. If I must lie out in the cold and dark, I can always bring out my prayer and wear it like a comforting blanket. I have no fear of the future, for my future doesn’t stop with my death. The reason I know this is that whenever I take out my prayer and offer it up to the Creator, I keep getting the same response: “I will see to it all”. God loves my prayer because I’ve learned it from Him and I accept its truth with all I have. He responds with all He has, and He has so very, very much.

2/19/10 Spiritual Presentations        

For quite a while now I haven’t believed heaven to consist of anything other than pure joy. To me this means that nothing of our earthly lives is needed to complete our heavenly lives – friends, relatives, pets, or places that we loved on Earth. Even if you discount that the presence of acquaintances must cause disruption as well as joy, just as they did on Earth, it still seems that they would not be necessary and therefore would be redundant.

It’s my intuition that only God’s presence is necessary for complete joy. But there is something endearing about the possibility of being greeted by loved ones as we approach heaven. After all, the fear of death makes us cling to the thought that we will be helped into the transition by people we know and trust. Yet it doesn’t ring true to me, as the concept of “God is All” is so ingrained in my mysticism, and wishing for something else in heaven seems sacrilegious.

I guess there would be no harm, though, in speculating about these wondrous things, much in the way we review what we would do with a million dollars if we won the lottery. I think it’s human nature, since we don’t know for sure about something that’s inevitable, to make up what we would like to be true just as an exercise.

Tonight as we were ice fishing we were discussing how the people in the stories we tell all seem to have passed on. I mentioned that I’m old enough that I think I know more deceased people than living ones. This got me to thinking that the moment of death must not be too hard to handle, since so many have done it. From there I began to reflect on how people might envision their entry into heaven.

There standing on the huge expanse of lake, the enormity of God’s work came to mind. As wondrous as it is here, how awesome it must be in heaven, where we get the full effect of God. I began to play with thoughts of what I’d like to witness as I pass over, even though it’s my theology that the presence of God will comprise my ecstasy and that alone will be enough for me. I went from being able to eat whatever I want without fullness or guilt to having unlimited opportunity to spend my own time however I want. I thought of the things on Earth I didn’t like and gave some thought to how it would feel to not have to worry about them.  I envisioned a lack of responsibility; the freedom to have my head in the clouds instead of on worldly considerations.

At the end of this exercise I looked out onto the lake and was struck by something I don’t remember ever having noticed before. I never realized how beautiful the smell of warm snow is when the sun starts to go down and the cold starts to bring all the senses into sharpness. It’s like a prayer, a gift, and a comfort from God that all is well because He wills it to be. When we see how God presents beautiful things like the smell of snow to us here on Earth, we can be comforted that He really does want only good for us and is capable of providing it in His mercy – now and on into eternity.

 2/7/10 Reflections             Everything is the way it is because that’s how God wants it. Save the whale, stop global warming – do what you will, the outcome is still whatever is God’s plan. You can be a force for good, but that’s your interpretation of what is needed; unless this is the same as what your Creator deems necessary it will count for nothing. That’s just the way it is, and God keeps dropping hints that we might want to limit our interference in it for our own good. Still we insist on taking over. So what if we’re extremely incompetent? At least we feel good about ourselves!

But maybe feeling good about ourselves is not such a worthy goal. For some of us, feeling good about ourselves is another form of greedy self-regard because we do things out of human pride; circumventing the will of God. Since we do impact nature we are charged with not abusing it. But for some, that’s the green light to go to the other extreme – denying the use of nature when it should be used, being a gift from God.

Most people don’t factor in God’s wishes when taking up a cause, some on the premise that God’s wishes are unknown but surely must conform to theirs; some on the premise that there is no God so it’s all up to them. But this is the Creator Himself they are dismissing – how much simpler and more beneficial it would be to acknowledge that there is a supernatural plan in place; to concede that the care of the Earth has been in God’s hands and will continue to be this way on into eternity. No matter what we do or don’t do, His effect will be what decides the Earth’s fate. Study as we might, all we will find is the mechanics of how God is fulfilling His plan.

Put that way, we might be induced to set aside the hype and the panic talk. We might each consider getting back to the spiritual meaning behind what we do. We can succeed by being partners in God’s master plan instead of failing by conceitedly fighting against it.

2/3/10 Insights from Study           No matter where you are on the religious spectrum, how far you’ve gone on your spiritual journey, or what sins you still hold in your heart – one thing you can always do is take a second to consult God before starting a task. No matter how small or large the endeavor, or how public the place, you can always discreetly put it before God to ask for His counsel and to promise to act according to His will.

You don’t have to wait for an answer – just by doing the asking you remind yourself of the joy of servanthood, and you honor God by your humility. Anything that brings you this close to God is beneficial, for it puts you in peak position to recognize God’s will for your work. This small exercise puts you in mind of God, possessing Him in both your worthiness and your humility working together.

It’s not a good-luck charm, because whether you succeed or fail depends on God’s will only. But it’s an acknowledgment that you desire that something important to you be within God’s master plan as well, and if it is His desire, that He lend you His power so to honor Him with your partnership. When He says you should ask so that you may be given, He speaks not only of material gifts but of good counsel. It’s such an easy thing to do and the reward is instantaneous – a feeling of closeness to the Creator and of being at oneness with Him and His plan.

12/13/09 Reflections                 The job of the world is a simple one. It doesn’t matter what your vision of God is – as long as you appeal to goodness, you love your Creator. It’s not difficult to do, and from where we are we might be amazed to know how well the world already does this. The world isn’t as bad off as it seems – much is said about its negative aspects, but then little is reported about our spiritual state. You think global spirituality will never happen, but the world has already come a long way toward it. The great religions, and most of the obscure ones, are all based on goodness. From the time human beings were created, we have looked up to the Creator in awe and wonder, looking for goodness from Him and within ourselves.

You don’t even have to believe in the Creator in order to worship Him. Even atheists show honor to God each time they do something good for others. Goodness doesn’t have to spring from religion; goodness reflects on God no matter what we believe, because God is goodness Himself. The job is simple because it comes naturally to us. We are our own reward system. Of course there are objects pulling us the other way, but while they may provide happiness, they don’t provide safety and contentment. And there are always the spoilers, who seem to thrive on evil, yet who can say how they are inside?

But global goodness doesn’t take global government – that would be sure to polarize people because government is about power, and only one power can reign supreme, leaving lesser powers resentful. It takes individuals working on a local scale with what they know and the means to advertise it.

It’s absolutely amazing how our lives intertwine and intersect, though we be total strangers. Now with the availability of instant communication worldwide via the internet it’s infinitely more possible to have an effect on someone without even knowing it. Interestingly, the probability of this being a polarizing factor is just as likely as it being something that brings us together. But the point is – it’s getting harder and harder to deny that, living under the same sun, we may have a lot more in common than the ten o’clock news might imply. We are not as diverse as we think because in God’s eyes we are all the same — everything!

Our differences can’t cancel out our overriding essence – we are all spiritual beings lost in a world of matter. Any differences we have are superficial, because only the spirit matters in the great scheme of things. Our one job is to care for our spirits and encourage, whether actively or passively, others to care for theirs. If left alone we do this naturally, because all spirits are the same and we know others’ exactly as well as we know ours. The difference is only in the degree of the grace we allow to pervade our spirits. It’s the goodness of God that wishes to live in us, and the joy we receive from His presence (our spirits are lifted) makes us tend to want to cooperate in this plan.

But we are spirits in a material world, and there is happiness to be had. Material happiness is not evil, but what it does is prevent the spirit from being filled with God through the neglect that comes from our preoccupation with worldly things. The body is the tool that moves us through the world. The mind is the lever that makes the body go. The soul is the emotion that directs the mind toward which levers to pull. All this for not only survival, but for happiness.

None of this though is the essence of what we really are – that is the spirit. The spirit is the container for however much of God we are willing to invite. In the end it is what of us survives for eternity. If it is full of God we have joy; if it isn’t, we have longing for God. The filling of the spirit with God takes place now and continues until perfection is reached. Allow God in, and seeing as God seeks all spirits, encourage others to allow God in. Make God more important to you and the effects of this will spill over to the lives of others as well.

12/10/09 Insights from Prayer             I go alone to a quiet place to talk and listen to my Creator. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be. No fear, no doubt, no despair, no guilt – just doing what God means for me to do. This is the way it is in the Reality of heaven; for this reason I am at peace here. I am content with what I have because I turn my face toward the thing of real importance. If enemies pound at the door I don’t hear them here in my cocoon of safety. If there are corners where I, the temple of God, haven’t swept properly, I acknowledge this and immediately dismiss it. For here and now I exist only to honor my God by receiving His love and offering my own to Him. I go away refreshed, and I don’t grow faint from the clanging and screeching and wailing and shrieking of the world, so satisfied am I with the promise for that world that is the thing I hear above all else.

12/4/09 Insights from Prayer        We are all in exile but we can stand anything when we keep our emotions centered on home. If we try to fit in with imperfection we will never be at ease, because we were made for better than that. When we put it all on the Creator we are consoled, for we know two things: He will act on our behalf perfectly, and He is honored when we give up our disordered priorities in favor of His perfect ones.

The world frightens us because it is filled with human-powered sin. It’s this sin, not the will of God, that causes us our agony. Whether it is we who are doing the sinning or not, we all suffer together because we must experience imperfection together. Sins committed, sins of omission, emotions unbridled, annoyances personified, addiction, prejudice, wanting what we don’t have, putting forth too much reverence for what we do have, making too much of ourselves – any sin we commit or weakness we give into is a sign that our spirits are in disorder. And no wonder – we were not made for this world at all.

This world is what our lives look like when we look at them wrong. God created us for perfection and so that is what we are. But God allowed us to reject Him, and we pay for it by being blind to the reality of our perfection. We are in exile; this doesn’t feel right to us at all. We’re missing something and most of us don’t understand that it is the perfect relationship with God that we’re craving. That’s why our spirits feel as if they’re never contented.

We can’t bring our spirits back to perfection here, because “here” itself is imperfection. This world is only the medium of misperception which is the result of our disassociation from God. It isn’t real, and that should be a comfort to us, to know that one day we will again have perfect vision of reality. Until then there is only hope.

What makes the world of exile bearable is God’s mercy, and His power of consolation available to us when we ask for it. Each experience of worldly beauty gives us a glimpse of promise – God’s word that He is present and wishes to remind us of the joy that reigns where we are headed. When we see this beauty, we ought to immediately connect to the Creator who brought it about. The more we think of God, the more hints He gives into our immortal existence, and the more hopeful we are. God answers the confusion and suffering we experience in this world with better perception of the beauty and perfection that is our real life. The more we honor God the easier we see through our exile and into our reality, and the less anxiety we will have with our earthly, temporary trials when we recognize the joy that is to come.

11/27/09 Insights from Prayer          I’m always despairing over my lack of compassion. Last night it came to me that if, as I profess, I only want what God wants, I should be patient and trust that He leads me to compassion, even if it doesn’t seem like I’m anything other than unnecessary.

When I give money to charities, I’m still left emotionally flatlined. When I pray for others I feel fulfilled, yet only momentarily. My lifestyle is such that I seldom have an opportunity to connect with others. But when I write what comes so effortlessly to my mind when I’m enjoying the presence of God, only then is there the feeling that I do have something to do that’s purposeful.

How else will I know what is right for me unless I examine my feelings when I do it? We are all different – some contribute one way and some contribute another. My focus must be that if I truly live to love and honor God, whatever means speaks to that end must have God’s approval, no matter how it looks to me or fits in with what others are doing.

If God’s wish is mine, I should not be afraid to allow myself approval as well. In this state, I should have enough discernment to know that God is only goodness and so must be my motives and actions. I cannot rate myself on any other scale, because then I will be a victim of spiritual confusion.

11/24/09 Reflections           Once we accept God, we realize we have been forgiven. End of subject — there’s no need to rehash the past. We do not need to make up for what we’ve done – we could never do that as God has already done it perfectly. We don’t have the ability to pay for our past sins, so we neither have the obligation to try.

In the same way, we have no right to expect others to even up their accounts with God. We deal with others as God does – full forgiveness without requiring any payback. What could anyone do to reverse the effects of their sin against God? No more than you can do to square yourself with God. Life is better when we accept God’s forgiveness and extend the utmost degree of forgiveness to each other.

Now we know it’s futile to promise to make up for our sins or to require others to make up for theirs; so what can we do? Only accept that God has done this for us, and do our best to not get into the same occasion of sin again. Nothing forces us to do this, and if we do return to sin, we’ll be forgiven as before. So what’s the motivation for goodness?

It’s that no matter how prideful and “tough as nails” we want to appear, it feels good to feel good. Righteousness feels right. There is a peacefulness in justice and serenity in living right. We don’t even have to be sure of where such contentment comes from, although it makes sense that God would supply the favor when it seems right to Him. What matters is that a good deed begets the desire of the recipient to pass along the sentiment. And forgiveness of one person spurs on his desire to forgive someone in his life. It doesn’t always come to fruition, but the desire is there where it wasn’t before.

The motivation for goodness is the good feeling that comes from doing what has been put in our hearts as “right”, and the tendency of God to acknowledge the desire for goodness on the same scale as if the good deed had actually been done. This is because all we can really do that God does not take upon Himself is to give up our human tendencies in favor of letting our free wills conform in harmony with the will of God. Having done that, we only wait for God to act upon our desire. The result will be goodness.

We tend to miss this phenomenon because it seems too simple to be the meaning of life. But it stands to reason that, as helpless as we feel, life is far less about our contribution and more about God’s. Take away responsibility for everything but what God has given us to do, and life really is quite simple.

From there, we can contribute to society to the extent that we can, always keeping in mind that the die has already been cast, the roles have already been awarded, and the outcome is sure. We feel better when we exercise goodness and make life on Earth as serene as possible for the most of us as is possible. But it’s also important to remember our limitations; leaving the impossibilities up to God.

11/15/09 Inspirations           Spirituality attends to the “rightness” of the way we are when we are wrapped up in God. Religion tells us we please God by following the rules of “rightness”.

This example of the difference came to me: A spiritual woman was so immersed in the things of God that she was seldom moved to look at herself in a mirror and didn’t feel that putting on makeup was important to her. So without giving it much thought, she didn’t wear makeup.

A religious woman was taught all her life that wearing makeup is a sign of wantonness and self-adoration, so she didn’t wear makeup because she believed to do so was to sin against God.

Both women were of a mind to do the right thing, but this “goodness” in the spiritual woman was an effect of abandonment of self to God while this same “goodness” in the religious woman was reached by adherence to law.

If you are waiting for me to tell you the spiritual woman’s way was more pure than the religious woman’s way, you need to hear about the third woman in my example. This woman belonged to a religion that didn’t put forward any tenet at all on the wearing of makeup, but the only time she wore makeup was at church. Why? Her thought was that all week long she sweated and toiled for the sake of keeping body and soul together. On Sunday she was going to church to worship her Creator and wanted to make herself look and feel special for the occasion.

And I don’t know for sure, but it seems logical that there are places in the world where a person doesn’t feel they’ve honored God properly if the ritual didn’t include full body makeup.

We really confuse ourselves when we allow ourselves to judge “goodness”, especially when we move beyond self-examination and into the realm of judging others. That’s precisely why I do believe in the purity of motive that comes with spirituality, even if religious and plain old secular “goodness” is fine as well. It’s because in spirituality we immerse ourselves in God first and exude goodness because we’ve taken on His attributes. We are good because God is good; not because God has given us rules to follow and we’ve followed them.

The less self-interest there is – when our own goodness surprises us – the more evident that we treat goodness as a gift from God instead of as a reason to be rewarded for our own work.